


Sleepover?

by zakari_little_lion



Category: Astrid et Raphaëlle (TV)
Genre: F/F, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24668470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakari_little_lion/pseuds/zakari_little_lion
Summary: It’s Monday evening, it’s late, the lights are dim and Astrid is oh so comfortable.(Or, the one where Astrid falls asleep on Raphaëlle’s couch.)
Relationships: Astrid Nielsen/Raphaëlle Coste
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	Sleepover?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Elmup for proof-reading this :)

It was Monday evening, and like every Monday evenings for the last few months, Astrid found herself at Raph's. Despite her mediocre cooking skills, Raphaëlle insisted on cooking dinner for the both of them, mumbling something about “needing to take her mind off work” and launched into a recipe with more enthusiasm than she usually did.

Astrid had to give it to her, her colleague was improving. Not quite a star chef yet, but the meat melted like a sugary treat in her mouth and the sauce complimented the meal very well. The blonde told her as much and when she furtively glanced up, Raphaëlle was smiling widely at her from across the table and replacing a wild lock of hair behind her ear.

After putting everything in the dishwasher, they moved to the living room. They had a case to solve after all. The documentalist made no comment about the overall messiness littering the area: layers and layers of open files were stacked on the coffee table, empty coffee mugs were sitting on the floor as well as a few pillows, a blanket had been thrown without a care a few feet away, pens were lying around here and there... She didn't make any comment, but she didn’t really need to. Raphaëlle could see the uneasiness on her features as clear as day. The Commander quickly snatched the baguenaudier resting near the lamp and handed it to the blonde, knowing Astrid would feel more at ease with it.

"It is a baguenaudier,” Astrid stated as she inspected the puzzle, confused.

"Yes, Astrid. It is."

"This is not mine."

"Remember a few weeks ago when you forgot yours and couldn't focus on anything? How you were a nervous wreck the whole time you were here? Théo suggested that maybe I should invest in some stimming objects and since I noticed this one seems to be the one you enjoy handling the most..." she didn't finish her sentence but quickly noticed that Astrid couldn't figure out the end of it so she kept on, "Since this one seems to be the one you enjoy handling the most, I thought I should have one here. Just in case you ever forget yours again."

"Ah,” while touched by the gesture, the documentalist didn’t know exactly what to reply to that or how to articulate her thoughts, so she opted for politeness. “I can assure you that I do not intend on forgetting it again. Nevertheless, thank you, Commander Coste."

"Astrid, I know you would never voluntarily forget your bau- It's just in case. In case. Why don't you take a sit while I clean up this organized mess a bit?"

The blonde chuckled, amused by the oxymoron. "A mess, by definition cannot be organized. A mess: a dirty or untidy state of things or of a place. If it is organized, then it is not a mess."

Raphaëlle silently kicked herself. She had intended to tidy this up this morning but she had slept through her alarm and had woken up late. She had barely had enough time to put some clothes on and to make it on time to the police station, let alone clean up her living room.

"Right," the brunette commented distractedly as she actively put the files and whatnot into a semblance of tidiness. “There we go,” she said at last.

“We did not move.”

“It’s a figure of speech, Astrid. There we go, I’m done with what I was doing, the mess isn’t a mess anymore."

“I do not see how this is not a mess anymore, Commander Coste,” the blonde raised an eyebrow and briefly looked at the coffee table before tilting her head to the side. “But I do suppose it is a bit tidier. Thank you."

Raphaëlle sat on the left side of the couch. Over the course of the last few months, the right side had slowly but surely become Astrid's spot. To the point that, even when the blonde wasn't over, neither she nor Théo would sit there.

As if Astrid would notice that the wrinkles in the couch weren’t the exact same ones she had left there the week prior. It was her own little sacred place at Raphaëlle’s and they didn’t want to disturb it. It was her side, proof be her perfume coating the couch cushions. They smelled like fresh dew on a summer day, sweetened tea and… something else uniquely Astrid that the brunette couldn’t identify but loved. Not that she had ever sniffed her cushions trying to figure out what it was or anything. She had most definitely _never_ done that, no.

The sound of metal softly clanking against metal brought Raphaëlle back to reality and she noticed that Astrid was dexterously stimming away with her baguenaudier, her eyes were transfixed onto a specific floor board.

“You’re welcome. Now, let’s get to work.”

“Get to work,” Astrid repeated.

She handed Astrid a file to comb through while she took another.

* * *

Two cups of coffee, one cup of tea, many hazardous and pointless theories later, they had made little to no progress. The Commander was in the middle of reviewing the crime scene photos for the umpteenth time when she heard a soft thud. She lowered the picture she had been staring at for the last thirty seconds and looked down only to see Astrid’s mechanical puzzle on the ground.

“Well Astrid, getting slippery fingers on me, aren’t y-?” she stopped mid-sentence.

The documentalist appeared to have fallen asleep. For a few seconds, Raphaëlle froze, not sure about what to do. So instead, she just sat there and stared. Astrid looked so… peaceful and comfortable. Her chest was going up and down rhythmically with each breath, her head was tilted slightly to the side and resting against the back of the couch, a few locks of hair had fallen out of her signature ponytail and were now framing her face, a securing hand was covering the open file resting on her knees… Even in her sleep, Astrid was protective of her files, it seemed.

The thought bought a grin to the Commander’s lips and she could feel something warm and fuzzy settle inside her chest. It was happening more and more often lately, this mysterious feeling. She was unable to pint-point when it had started though. She remembered first noticing it only a few weeks ago.

The blonde had come by the police station to discuss some new discoveries she had made on their current case at the time and the documentalist had made a joke. A pun, to be precise. Nicolas, Arthur and herself had laughed wholeheartedly, not having expected it, and her eyes had landed onto Astrid. She had looked so damn happy and proud right then and there. A big grin had been etched on her face, her green and brown eyes had kept oscillating between the small group and a desk, her fingers had contorted in satisfaction... That had been the moment Raphaëlle had remarked that whatever feelings she was experiencing towards Astrid, they certainly weren’t of the friendship kind.

She realized she had been staring for quite a while and she gently shook her head from side to side to get a hold of herself, as if the small gesture would wipe the silly feelings away before she could analyze them too in depth. Deep down, she knew she was just delaying the inevitable. She would have to deal with them eventually but for now, she was pretty content with burying her head in the sand and keeping on pretending that everything was unchanged.

The brunette looked at the clock and saw that it was well past midnight. No wonder her colleague had fallen asleep, they had been slaving over this case for almost four hours straight. She was still pondering if she should wake Astrid up or not and, more importantly, about how she should do so when a car horn roared loudly not so far away from her house.

She jumped and the other woman jerked awake. Astrid’s first reflexes were to grip the file tighter, to shield it from any potential harm, and to look around, still dazzled but obviously anxious and lost. Raphaëlle wanted to storm out, to find the stupid driver and to have him arrested for night-time disturbances. Nobody should be allowed to walk free after waking such a beautiful sleepy angel up. Instead, Raphaëlle sighted, forcing her brief irritation out as she exhaled.

While the familiar surroundings helped Astrid calm down, she couldn’t not hear the loud general buzzing noise emanating from everything electric in the house so she put her hands over her ears to muffle the sound and gently rocked back and forth.

“It’s okay, Astrid. You’re at my house, you fell asleep. The loud noise was just a car horn, it’s gone now. You’re okay.”

Raphaëlle’s concerned face and kind words turned out to be precisely what Astrid needed to be soothed so she focused onto the soft-spoken words and progressively lowered her hands once she was ready. After a few moments, she melted back into the couch and pulled on her sleeves in order to feel the softness of the fabric against her palms.

“I fell asleep? I fell asleep.”

“You did. This case really is grueling. Hopefully, we’ll find a serious lead soon because a couple more days like this and I fear my blood will be nothing but pure caffeine.”

“I am afraid I do not understand,” the documentalist frowned. “Caffeine is ingested by the gastrointestinal tract. And while it does exist a process to bring proteins, lipids and carbohydrates to the bloodstream, I hardly doubt that caffeine-“

“-Astrid,” the Commander usually loved it when Astrid rambled on but her back was killing her from being stooped for so long and she was longing for her bed.

If she focused hard enough, she could almost hear it calling out her name. God, that was it. The day Commander Coste had lost all sanity. She needed sleep. Or to stop drinking so much coffee. Maybe both.

“I am not finished.”

“Astrid, not that I don’t find this conversation fascinating, because I really do, but I’m tired as hell and I would really like to head to bed. I can’t look at any more pictures.”

“Ah,” Astrid commented in acknowledgment and looked at her watch. “It is eighteen to one. I should be home, I should be asleep. I am not home, I am not asleep. It is a seventeen minute walk from here back to my flat. I have to do my night routine. I only have five hours and sixteen minutes of sleep left at most until my alarm goes off tomorrow morning.”

“You can stay over if you want. You can sleep in the guest room,” Raphaëlle heard herself say.

Only once were words out, did she register what she had suggested. Most of all, who she had suggested it to. A few moments passed in silence and she could see the wheels turning at full speed in Astrid’s head but she didn’t seem nervous, which Raphaëlle took as a good sign. The blonde then peeked at her colleague.

“I do not have my toothbrush.”

Out of all the things the brunette thought were going to come up as a problem, teeth-brushing wasn’t even in her top fifteen so she was a little taken aback that it was the first thing that came to Astrid’s mind. Taken aback, yet not that surprised.

“I can lend you one.”

“Is it an extra soft toothbrush? Because I only use extra soft toothbrushes.”

An extra soft toothbrush for an extra soft gem, go figure, Raphaëlle thought. Her brain caught up with what it had just been thinking and she mentally scolded herself at her own sappiness.

“As a matter of fact, they are. Théo has very sensitive gums so his dentist recommended that he only uses extra soft ones.”

“Ah. Do you have a weighted comforter?”

The brunette’s eyebrow shot up, she hadn’t been expecting that one either. “A what?”

“A weighted comforter.”

“I-I… I don’t.”

“Then, I really am sorry, Commander Coste, but I do not have any other choice but to decline your invitation. I cannot sleep without a weighted blanket.”

“And what is that exactly?” she asked, no longer afraid to ask and inform herself about Astrid’s ASD.

“The name is pretty self-explanatory,” Astrid stressed skillfully. “It is a comforter with weights. It is predominantly used by people with autism or ADHD to help them relieve stress and bring an overall sense of calm. The comforter is usually ballasted with glass beads or plastic pellets. The mechanism behind it is known as deep pressure stimulation. The beads create pressure on the human body and thus induce a reaction from both the sympathetic nervou-“

“Okay, okay, I get the idea.”

“I am not finished.”

“So you can only sleep if you’re weighted down? Literally?” Raphaëlle inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, weighted down.”

“Uh,” she let out pensively.

She had trouble figuring out how she would feel under a weighted blanket. Probably like she was on the verge of suffocating. The only kind of pressure she wanted to feel weighting her down was Théo’s body. And lately, Astrid’s. Not that she would ever admit that out loud, it was just a crazy fantasy that would never see the light of day.

“How about you bring it next Monday?” the Commander knew she was pushing her luck but next Monday was a week away, which left Astrid some down time to plan.

“Bring it? My weighted comforter?”

“Yeah.”

“It would not be at my house anymore when I would get back. It would be here,” Astrid voiced her confusion at Raph’s illogical statement, her eyebrows furrowing.

“You would be sleeping here Astrid,” the brunette softly chuckled.

“Ah. That certainly makes more sense. Why would I be sleeping here when I live a seventeen minute walk away, though?”

“Fun?”

“Fun?”

“Yeah, fun Astrid. It’d be kinda like a sleepover.”

“Fun. Fun.”

“You’ve already been to a sleepover, right?”

“Mmh-mmh,” the documentalist shook her head and her fingers twiddled the hem of her sleeves as self-stimulation. “Not that I can actively remember. I did not have must interest in socializing with other students when I was younger, especially outside of school. But I remember reading about it in the book you gifted me for my birthday.”

“Well yeah, sometimes friends sleep at each other’s places. Particularly if they ingested one too many glasses of alcohol or if they are very tired. Like you are today, for example. Plus, I have Théo next week. He’ll be so excited!” she nudged the blonde and put her best pout on.

Of course she wanted Astrid to say yes but she knew she was asking a lot out of the other woman, so she didn’t want to insist too much. If Astrid wasn’t ready for a sleepover, then they would wait until she was.

“It is a date, Raphaëlle,” Astrid finally replied after a few moments of silent consideration.

The brunette’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. She opened her mouth to talk but no word came out, they all died in the back of throat. She was too dumbfounded to think anything coherent, never mind say anything coherent. The only thing she knew was that her mouth was suddenly very dry and that her heart was beating way too fast inside her chest. It honestly was a miracle it hadn’t given out yet. How dare Astrid say something like that to Raphaëlle and look so… normal about it?

Eventually, after a couple of fruitless attempts, she managed to babble out a graceless “What?” **.**

“I said, it is a plan, Raphaëlle,” Astrid leaned forward until their shoulders were brushing against each other’s and the brunette didn’t dare moving, too afraid the blonde would jump away from her if she did. “It would appear that I am not the only one needing some sleep,” Astrid observed with a mischievous yet shy smile before righting herself.

“Are you making fun of me?”

She loved this side of Astrid. The playfulness and the teasing and the banter and the inside-jokes… The blonde never looked happier than she did in those moments and the brunette lived for them. Raphaëlle counted herself very lucky enough to not only be able to witness them and to also take part in them. The fact that they never failed to make her feel all warm and fuzzy inside probably had something to do with it.

“Indeed, I am.”

“You’re lucky I like you, Astrid,” the brunette chastised playfully.

That statement earned her a smile and eye-contact. Real eye-contact. She admired Astrid’s eyes for a few seconds, so brown and green and bright, shining with… was it fondness she could see in her eyes? No, it couldn’t be, the brunette must have been wrong. Not only was she hearing things but now, she was also seeing things that weren’t there too. This case truly was doing a number on her.

The Commander seemed deep in thoughts so Astrid broke the eye contact off and went to get her coat and backpack. Which really was just an excuse to breathe a little. She needed a few moments to compose herself, to let her feelings calm down so they wouldn’t overwhelm her. She hadn’t meant to make her feelings so transparent but, to her defense, she was sleepy and Raphaëlle had been so nice to her all evening and the Commander looked absolutely otherworldly under the living room dim lighting and with a hair slightly tousled… Astrid may be autistic but she was, first and foremost, a human being and she hadn’t been able to resist looking up to meet Raphaëlle’s dark eyes. Once she had gathered herself, she walked up to the front door, where the other woman was already waiting for her.

“Shoot me a text when you arrive so I know you made it home safely.”

Astrid frowned and glanced up, her still fingers indicating she was trying to decipher something. “Sh-shoot you a text?”

“Right, sorry, sorry. No figurative expressions, my bad,” she apologized in one breath and thankfully, Astrid’s fingers started moving right back up again. “What I meant was, send me a text.”

“Ah. I will send you a text then.”

“Thank you.”

“Once I am at home.”

“Yes, Astrid, once you’re at home.”

“To make sure that I am okay.”

“Yes, Astrid,” the Commander confirmed.

“Good night, Raphäelle. I will see you tomorrow at eight o’clock.”

“That is if I don’t miss my alarm again,” she kidded.

“Do you wish for me to call you tomorrow morning to make sure you are up?" the documentalist asked.

Raphaëlle was stunned, to say the least. It was unexpected, yet it was perfectly logical and she could understand how Astrid would come up with such an idea. It didn’t stop her from being shocked, though. She knew how hard phone calls were for the blonde, It was no secret she was much more comfortable with texting.

Truth was, as much as Astrid disliked phone calls, she liked the brunette’s voice. Especially in the morning, when it was husky and still tinged with sleepiness. She was ready to overcome her anxiety if it meant listening to the other woman’s voice fresh out of bed.

Raphaëlle cleared her throat, “That would be lovely but you really don’t have to.”

“I know I do not have to do it. I am merely offering. In the whole five months and twenty one days we have been working together, you have been late to work eleven times, Commander Coste.”

“Why, thank you for pointing that out, Astrid.”

“You are welcome,” she glanced up and gave her a small but proud smile.

Just like that, Raphaëlle’s little annoyance was gone and she smiled back fondly at the blonde. “Call me tomorrow at half past six?”

“I will.”

“Thanks, Astrid.”

“And I will text you later tonight. Once I am home. For you to make sure that I am okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Good night, Raphaëlle,” Astrid re-adjusted her bag straps and pulled at the sleeves of her pullover, two telltales signs that she was ready to go.

“Good night, Astrid.”

The documentalist nodded in acknowledgment and stole one last glance before walking away.

* * *

Later that night, Raphaëlle was lying in bed, scrolling away on her phone, trying to find a good weighted comforter. She had put the investigation in a mental cardboard box and had tidied it up in the back of her mind, to be left alone until tomorrow, eight AM. After three minutes of scrolling, she became aware that she had no idea what a good weighted comforter even was so she started looking at some online forums designed for and by autistic people to better grasp what the big deal about them was.

Her eyes were drooping every so often but she was stubborn and she refused to let sleep overtake her body since Astrid still hadn’t texted her. There was no way she was going to sleep without knowing for certain the other woman was safe and sound in her flat. Gratefully, her sweet release didn’t take too long because not even ten seconds later, she received a text from Astrid informing her that everything “had gone according the plan” and that she was home.

Then, and only then, could Raphaëlle allow her eyes to close for good. The thought of Astrid calling her tomorrow morning plastered her mind all over and oh, what sweet dreams she did conjure up.


End file.
